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Tiah Abbas, left, owner of Farmer’s Co-op Antiques Mall, and Joni Lussier, manager, stand in the front of the store with Lussier’s dog, Chewie. Chewie is the shop dog and spends five days a week at the store, Lussier said.
Adam Wickham / The Bulletin
‘An aha moment’ that led to antiques
Owner left a career in banking to run Redmond store
By Jeff McDonald / The Bulletin
Published: June 09. 2009 4:00AM PSTREDMOND — Just east of downtown, the old Farmer’s Co-op Antiques Mall has always been a place for commerce.
Where farmers once traded grain, feed, supplies and potatoes, more than 40 dealers now hawk everything from cowboy collectibles to furniture to country quilts, glass jars, guitars, dolls and antique toys.
Customers range from tourists to serious collectors to older hobbyists who sometimes like to walk around the store as a form of therapy, said owner Tiah Abbas, a former Portland banker who purchased the Farmer’s Co-op in 2002.
“It was an aha moment,” she said of her decision to leave banking and buy the antiques store. “I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life in a suit.”
Some customers buy items to try to resell on eBay for a profit. Others buy antiques to sell in higher-priced places like California, Seattle and Portland, she said.
“I think people buy from sentiment if they see something from their childhood,” Abbas said. “A lot of people are collectors. We get a lot of older collectors.”
The 11,000-square-foot store is divided into 40 sections, each managed by a separate dealer who pays rent and a 15 percent commission on each sale, Abbas said. Many of the dealers are retired antique hobbyists, she said.
Abbas and her manager, Joni Lussier, are the sole employees of the store.
Once a price is set, there is usually no haggling unless the item costs more than $100, Lussier said.
“Every booth is different,” Lussier said. “Each dealer’s space is a store-within-a-store.”
The biggest section is managed by a Redmond minister, who sells everything from antique cowboy boots to horse bridles and saddles, Lussier said.
“A lot of cowboys come in for horse-related items,” Lussier said.
The co-op was hit hard for about two years by a road construction project along Evergreen Avenue, where traffic heading east and west to and from Prineville was diverted, Abbas said. That project concluded in May and the completion of the U.S. Highway 97 reroute last year gives the antique store increased visibility and connects it to Redmond’s downtown, she said.
The Farmers Co-op is one of about six antique shops around Redmond, according to Abbas. Lower rents than in Bend make it possible for dealers to stay afloat, and its proximity to the Redmond Airport and Deschutes County Fair & Expo Center makes it a popular stop for tourists, she said.
Abbas and Lussier responded to the following questions via e-mail.
Q: What makes Redmond such a hotbed for antiques?
A: The major reason that it is so attractive is because of our lower prices compared to antique malls in other areas. Our prices are lower than our larger neighbors such as Portland and Seattle, and are considerably lower than prices in California or on the East Coast.
Q: Who are some of your customers? Are they mostly locals, or do you cater to tourists as well?
A: We actually have quite a variety of customers. We have our local avid customers who stop by on a weekly basis and then we have your tourists who have visited us before that make sure to add the Farmer’s Co-op to their traveling plans. … Most first-time customers become regulars if they are locals and even if they are tourists from out of town we still become one of their main stopping points for future travel. We have customers from out of state that make yearly trips to the co-op and some have been doing these yearly trips for five or seven years. ….
Q: How is the recession impacting your business?
A: We have experienced a slight impact because of the recession as we have seen customers sticking to smaller, more inexpensive purchases, but overall we really have not been impacted too badly. With the current green movement, we are able to provide consumers with quality goods at great prices that allow them to recycle something that at one time could have been in an early farmhouse. . … We provide our customers with goods that have character and that in some shape or form tell a story of the past.
Q: What are some future growth opportunities? What are some challenges?
A: As people learn to really appreciate the value of antiques and they realize that in many cases they increase in value over time, we hope that we will see more people buying antiques for their homes and for everyday use. Our store itself will remain the same size with the same quality dealers, but because we have 40-plus dealers, we have new merchandise coming in the store on a daily basis. Some challenges that we face include the economy to an extent, but one major challenge is finding the unique and affordable inventory that we specialize in. Our dealers are always on the hunt for inventory for their spaces, but finding items that we can affordably resell to the pubic can be challenging at times.
Jeff McDonald can be reached at 541-383-0323 or at jmcdonald@bendbulletin.com.
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